No Prayer In Vain
by clair beaubien
Summary: Conversations between the boys & God. Now up: Chapter 4. Sam finds a secluded spot for his last prayer, but God's not the only one listening.
1. Chapter 1

Sam pulled the Impala to stop in front of St. Joseph's Catholic Church. It was midnight. He thought it was midnight, or close to it. It was dark anyway, and the middle of the night. He hadn't been drinking but he sure felt like he had a hangover. Crying did that to him. He used to think that it was the drinking that made his brain feel like lead in his skull, but he hadn't had a drink in months. So that left crying. He cried a lot. He was crying now. Sometimes it felt like he never stopped.

He was alone in the car. He was always alone. Even when somebody was sitting next to him, he was alone because they weren't Dean. He was alone and he didn't want to be.

"Please bring Dean back." He said, prayed, looking up at the dark, silent church. "I know you can. If you wanted to. Please bring him back." He didn't expect Dean to just appear there, suddenly, smiling, asking _"Dude, are you talking to yourself again?"_ But he wanted some sign that somebody was listening. He got nothing.

"I suppose you're not even talking to me anymore. I wouldn't blame you. Nobody talks to me anymore. I don't talk to anybody either I guess. Just - please bring Dean back. You have to. _Please_ you have to. Pastor Jim said you don't hold people to decisions they make under duress and you know when Dean made that deal – you know what he was going through. You know he – you know how he is. Please bring him back. Please, he doesn't deserve to be in hell."

A lazy breeze blew across the street, through the open windows of the car and on toward the church. Then nothing. Still nothing.

"Please bring Dean back. I'll do anything you want. You know I will." Sam scrubbed at the tears that were scalding his face and running down his neck under his shirt. "Dean never – all his life all he ever did was help people. Try to help anybody who was in trouble. He never – you know he never thought of himself. I mean – yeah, okay, sometimes he did – I mean – you know how he is. Was. But not when it was about saving people. Remember – remember he risked his life to save Lenore? He risked his life to save - I forget her name – Max's stepmother? There's not one innocent person out there he wouldn't risk his life to save and isn't that what you want? Isn't that the kind of person you want on earth? Please – please – bring Dean back."

He wiped his hand across his face then scrubbed his sleeve under his nose and down his neck and wiped his face again.

"You're supposed to be a loving God, but if you don't love me it's all right. People who love me die. They always die. I guess you could be the one person – or _whatever_ – who could love me and not die, hunh?" He laughed but it hurt. "Dean loved me. He never said it. Not like that. Not straight out, but he never had to. I mean, I needed to be told Dean loved me like I needed to be told the sun was coming up in the morning. You know? I mean – yeah, I guess you _do_ know, hunh?"

There was a bottle of water in the backpack on the seat next to him and he pulled it out to take a swallow. Whiskey would've been better because it would numb the pain, for a little while anyway. But drinking himself to death wouldn't save Dean.

"I know I keep asking you to bring him back, but that's what I'm supposed to do, right? Keep asking? Pastor Jim said to keep asking. I mean, I think he said, '_the squeaky wheel gets the grease'_ but it means the same thing right? And really – if you bring Dean back I'll stop bugging you about it. Wouldn't you prefer that?" He wanted to laugh but a cracked sob broke from him.

"You're the only one I can talk to. And I don't even know if you hear me or if you even care. I don't know why you _should_ care. I know the bible says you take care of lepers and blind people and people who can't walk but it never said anything about freaks, did it? I'm a freak, I've been a freak since – since forever it feels like. The life we lived, the way I grew up. How tall I got. You know, I'd see myself in a reflection next to Dean and it always surprised me how much bigger than him I am. Was. It was like I was a giant, a – a – _freak._ Only Dean never made me feel that way, you know?" He took another drink of water and scrubbed at his face and neck again. Tears kept falling.

"I mean – yeah – you know – he'd call me a freak when I did something that made it seem like I was way smarter than him or something that made him worry about me. But never about my height." Sam actually managed a laugh that didn't hurt. "I'm not sure Dean even ever realized that I'm – was – taller than him." He tried to smile at the memory but he sobbed again.

"I miss him _so much_. Please – can't you bring him back? Please? You can do anything you want to me. I don't care. It doesn't matter. I mean – I'm the freak with the demon blood in me, right? You don't want me, do you? You couldn't possibly want me. So why let me live when you could have Dean here? Just – just – please – let me see him just once before you send me wherever I deserve to go. That's all. Please. Just let me – please – let me know he's okay and I'll do whatever you want. _Please._"

For a minute he had to press his arm over his mouth to try and stop his sobbing. He could feel Dean so close he expected a knock on the window and Dean's voice, '_Dude, get outta my seat,'_ And he'd take a look at Sam's face and ask '_What's wrong?_" in that way that sounded like there wasn't anything he wouldn't take on to take care of Sam, and he meant _right now_.

"_Please." _ Sam prayed again when he could speak. "Please bring Dean back. He's all I have. He's the only person – he always seemed like the only person big enough to protect me. I mean why – why let him die when I'm gonna go darkside without him? I mean – maybe you don't care about me and I don't blame you, but don't you care about the people I could hurt? Do anything you want to me but please – bring Dean back. Nobody else will make a deal with me. I mean – well, you already know what I've tried to do, don't you? Kinda hard to hide anything from you, hunh? No point in denying what I've tried. But – I know you don't make deals. Pastor Jim said you don't make deals but he said no prayer goes unheard, no prayer goes unanswered."

Another scrub at his eyes, his nose, his neck. Another lonely breeze blew through the car.

"What am I supposed to do? You don't want me, maybe even hell doesn't want me. Dean's the only person who wanted me just because I was me. No powers, no nothing. It didn't matter. Just me. Please bring him back and let me be his little brother again. I'll do whatever you want, you know I will. Please. _Please_. I can't – this is just _so hard_. Please bring him back. Please. I don't know what else to say, I don't know what else to offer, I don't know what else I can do. I know I've never lived the best life, and now – what I've been doing since Dean –." He had to take a breath to go on. " – _died_ – I think I must be just so much gutter junk to you now. But if you don't want me, just bring Dean back and I'll do whatever he says. If you don't want to have anything to do with me, just bring Dean back and let him take care of it. Let him protect me, watch out for me. Bring him back and have _him_ tell me what you want me to do. Please."

Just then the bells in the church tower started to chime. Must be midnight now, hunh? Time to get back to the motel probably, since he probably wasn't getting anywhere with God right now anyway. He took a final gulp of water and dried his face one last time before he started the car and drove down the street.

He pased a bank at the corner of the street but he didn't look at the lighted sign blinking its message out into the darkness,

_68 degrees. 12:01am. September 19__th__, 2008._


	2. Thank You

"Hey – hi. I - uh – I came to say thanks."

Sam sat himself in the last pew of the small chapel, turning sideways on the wooden seat to fit his knees behind the next pew in front of him. He looked toward the small altar fitted into the small alcove at the front of the chapel. Painted on the wall over it was a pastoral view of St. Joseph, lily in one hand, hammer in the other, and a white dove hovering over his shoulder. Sam fixed his eyes on the dove; that was the image that represented God to him in that picture, that's who he was talking to.

"I just – I had to say – _thank you_. I – _Dean's safe." _ Tears filled his eyes and spilled over. "I mean – you know that. Right? You're the one who saved him. So you know, you know he's safe." He wiped his face and pushed his hands into his pockets because they were shaking. He cleared his throat.

"Just – it didn't occur to me – not until I was coming in here just now – you – the other night – when I was outside praying the other night, I didn't know Dean was already safe. I didn't know that or I wouldn't have – I wouldn't have -." He shrugged. " - _bothered_ you. I – um – I just – _Dean's safe._ He's just _safe._ "

He had to wipe his face again. "He's across the street, at the diner. With Bobby. We're heading to Bobby's for a little '_regroup and reunion'_ that's what I heard Dean call it. He said that to Bobby. I don't know if I was supposed to hear him or not. But – that's when Bobby said he was gonna hotfoot it home and we could just get there when we get there. You know? It's gonna take us fifteen hours or so to get there and I just – I mean – _Dean's safe_ and – and – I think – I think Bobby knows how much – how important – _Dean's safe_ – and I can't wait to be stuck in the car with him for fifteen hours."

A warm breeze blew through the small room and Sam looked out the open window next to the first pew. Outside he could hear traffic and voices and life seemed so much brighter than it had just a few days before.

"I coulda hugged Bobby for saying that." Sam said, turning back to image of the dove. He smiled. "But I think I woulda got doused with holy water for my trouble. And Dean said if I don't stop grinning at him he won't look at me anymore. I told him it was just his tough luck."

He wiped at his face and his neck and ran his hand through his hair before pushing his hand back into his pocket. He was trembling.

"_Dean's safe._ You don't know what that means to me. I mean – okay, you _do._ I know you do. It's kinda hard having a conversation with somebody who knows everything." He smiled again, though tears were still falling. "It's kinda easier too. I don't have to lie about anything. I don't have to hide anything or watch what I'm saying or wonder what you're going to think. I can just talk. I mean – _Dean's safe_ and that's _everything_ to me.

"I don't know if you brought him back for me. I don't know why you would. Unless it was to shut me up." He managed another smile. "But if whoever you brought him back for doesn't thank you – or even if they do – _thank you_. I – I – _Dean's safe._ I don't know how many times I'll have to say it before I believe it. Pastor Jim used to say 'faith means when you pray for rain, you carry an umbrella', and I prayed and prayed for him to come back and then when he does – first thing I try to kill him. So I guess I failed that one, hunh?" He smiled and cried and wiped his face and hunched over a little because of the emotion pounding in his chest.

"_Dean's safe_ and I can't think of what else to say but thank you. I mean – for all the praying and – and – _begging_ – and – and – _whining_ I suppose –." He smiled again and really thought God would be smiling too at that. "For all that, you'd think I could think of something more to say than just 'thank you' but – what else is there? There isn't anything else. _Dean's safe_ and there isn't anything else I want. I mean – I know people always says 'give me this and I won't ask for anything else' but I know I'll be asking for more stuff. It's the job. It's just – but you want to be asked for stuff, don't you? You want to be needed, don't you? Or you wouldn't have made us. I think."

He took a deep breath and wiped his face and curled his hands into fists in his lap.

"Thank you for bringing Dean back. I know I could – I _should_ - be thanking you from now until - whenever – but if I don't remember – if I'm busy thinking about something else – well, I guess I'll remember whenever I look at Dean, won't I? _Dean's safe. _I don't need anything else."

There was a noise behind him and he turned to find Dean looking around the half-closed door.

"Hey, there you are. You weren't in the big church part, I wasn't sure where you got to. Bobby wanted to get on the road and he wouldn't leave until I came in here with you. He didn't want to leave me alone – so…" He didn't finish the sentence but Sam thought, '_I know how he feels_'. Dean pulled his holy water flask out of his pocket. "I'm gonna go fill up with the good stuff while we're here. Let me know when you're ready."

"Okay."

Dean ducked out again and Sam stood up, wiping his face and taking another deep breath.

"_Thank you_." He said again, whispering so Dean wouldn't hear him. "I wish there was some better, some bigger way to say it. I guess I'll just keep trying. I better get out of here now before Dean tells me if I'm praying so much I better be praying for pie." He smiled and felt again that God was smiling too. "I'll talk to you soon."

He walked out into the front hallway of the church. Dean was at the far end filling his flask from the holy water dispenser.

"You ready then?" Dean asked. "You need to make a stop at the 'Little Brothers' Room' before we leave?"

"_Dean_. I'm not seven."

"I'm just asking." Dean said, sounding peeved. "I know how you get."

"I'm _fine,_ okay?"

"_Okay. _ You _whine _like a seven year old." Dean muttered. Then he turned that look on Sam, that 'big brother happy to be with his little brother' look. "So – you're ready? Got everything you need?"

"Yeah." Sam said. He couldn't help smiling. "Yeah, I've got everything I need."

The end.


	3. Prayers and Promises

"So – um – hey. I – uh – well, you know I don't believe in You, but I told Layla that I'd – uh – _pray_ for her, and – uh – so, I guess that means talking to You."

Dean whispered his words under the protection of music pounding out of the car's cassette player. Sam was asleep in the passenger seat, actually managing to look _sprawled_ in the usually cramped space, with his head on his arm against the window, and his jacket pulled over him like a blanket. Sound asleep. He'd been getting no sleep at all lately, with Dean's accident and damaged heart and finding Roy and stopping Sue Ann. Sam would run until he _let_ himself crash, and when he crashed, it was absolute.

Still, Dean whispered to keep Sam from hearing anything.

"So – um – like I was saying – I don't believe in You. I never have. I believe in family, _my_ family. I believe in _me_ taking care of things." Dean had to smile at that. "So if I'm in charge then I say Layla is healed. So there."

The jacket slipped off of Sam a little and Dean reached over to tuck it back where it belonged.

"Even if I did believe in You – I don't believe You'd actually care about me. I mean, what – you must get up every morning and have twenty-seven billion voice messages waiting for You. What's one from me in all of that? I just – prefer to take care of things myself. That way I know the job is gonna get done, and get done right. I mean – no offense – but the good guys could sure use some help down here and I just don't ever see You jumping into the fight."

He took another look at Sam just to be sure, and for sure Sam was still out like a light, though it was only three o'clock in the afternoon.

"I know Roy said You chose me to be healed, because – what'd he say? Because I have a job to do that's not finished. Which is damn straight – I'm gonna kill the thing that hurt my family." He looked at Sam and tucked the jacket back up from where it had slid down again. "But Roy could've just seen that himself. Psychic or whatever. I don't know. I just – well, I told Layla I'd pray her for her and I am. Because she deserves it. To be healed. Way more than I do. More than I ever could deserve it. I'm just – me. And that's all. And maybe I'm not good enough for You to listen to, even if You do exist. But _she's_ good enough for You to listen to me, so listen good. You take care of her, and heal her, and geesh give her mother something to calm her down, will You? That woman – well I bet I don't have to tell You what she's like. Just – take care of Layla." He took a deep breath and voiced the one word he saved for desperate moments. "_Please._"

"Dean?" The Sleepy Sammy voice reached him over the music. "You talking to yourself?"

Dean tucked the jacket up for Sam again and sighed.

"_I hope not."_

The End


	4. Final Prayer

Sam found his way out to the really secluded end of the motel parking lot. There weren't any windows on this end of the building. No other buildings close by. Just dumpsters, junked cars, and garbage. It was dark, and private, and Sam chose it as the place for his final prayer.

He looked up at the starry night sky.

"Hey. Hi. I just - I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I mean - I know you know everything, so you know if I'm sorry, you know if I'm sorry enough. Better even than _I _know. But - but I wanted to say it to you. I wanted you to hear it from me. I mean, if you're even listening to me."

Sam sighed and looked around and didn't see anybody and addressed the sky again. The air was hot and hard to breathe and smelled of old garbage.

"Even if you are listening to me, even if I am sorry, I can't be sorry enough, can I? I know people tell you all the time that if they could take something back, they would, and you know I would. I also know it doesn't matter whether I would or not because it's too late. It's been too late - for a long time."

He looked around again, a huge cat was hunting rats around the dumpsters, pushing aside cardboard boxes filled with trash and digging into mountains of newspapers still in their orange plastic wrappers. Other than that, the parking lot was quiet, this whole corner of desolation was quiet, even the lone bar just visible down the road was quiet.

"If anything happens to me, I guess I won't be seeing you. I guess only Bobby is on my side now." His breath caught like he'd swallowed wrong, but that's not what it was. "No, I know, it's not about who's on _my _side, but whose side _I'm_ on. I know that. You know I thought I was doing what you - no, I thought I was doing the right thing, whether or not it was _your_ thing. I _made _myself believe I was doing what you wanted."

A car horn blared somewhere out in the night's shadows, and it made Sam flinch. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and stared down at his feet.

"Dean - he can't stand to be around me. He goes off without me as much as he can. Which - really - I know I don't deserve anything else. He's over at that bar now." He gestured with his head. "At least I guess he is. He's not in the room. He's not with _me_." He took a swipe across his eyes with his hand.

"Look, I'm sorry I bothered you all those times. All those times I prayed to you." He laughed, it sounded like he was mocking himself. "Something else I thought was a good idea when I was doing it and it just turned out to be one more stupid thing, hunh? Not that - at least praying to you didn't do much other than annoy you. It never doomed the world." He took a sharp breath that was more than it sounded like.

"I doomed the world, didn't I? I can't - I can't -." Another laugh, scary this time. "You must've hated hearing the sound of my voice. Every time I started to pray, started to talk to you, you must've wanted to turn your radio up louder or something. Just to not hear me. I'm sorry. _I'm sorry._"

He turned and maybe was headed back to the room, but then turned back.

"_Do _I bother you? Do you want me not talking to you? Because - I don't have anybody _else _to talk to. I mean - I could call Bobby, but he's got a lot going on now too, you know?" He tipped his head side to side. "I know -_ you know._ I just - you've always just been real easy to talk to.

"Maybe I wasn't doing it right. Maybe that's why it was easy, 'cause I was doing it wrong. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, hunh? What was the last thing I did right? Lately I'm not even sure I _sleep_ right. I'm _so_ -." He cleared his throat, but he was buying himself time, giving himself a chance to start over. "I'm afraid of doing something or saying something that's gonna - make Dean - even more - _unhappy._ I want - I just want - to know -

"I can't ask Dean. I can't ask anymore of him than I already am. Than I already have. You know - _I know you know_ - how much he's done for me all my whole life. With no complaint. Well, without _much_ complaint. Without needing to be asked nearly most of the time. He just - did it. Like breathing. Like - like I was worth it."

He stopped talking, praying, for a minute or two then, staring at the pocked pavement, his fists still shoved into his pockets, shoulders curled down like he always did when he wasn't sure, or when he _was_ sure, of something he didn't _want _to be sure of. The nighttime hovered over him, like it was waiting for something more out of him.

"Am I junk?" He asked, first to the ground, and then to the sky. "People say you don't make junk but - _I'm_ junk. Right? I mean - am I? When Mom and Dad made me, was I junk? Was I ever - _worth_ - anything? Will I ever _be_ worth anything? Can I ever be?"

He waited, face turned up to the sky, but nothing happened. Nothing moved. Even the cat was done hunting for the moment. Not even a breeze moved through the space.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He scrubbed his bangs off his forehead and out of his eyes. "I told you I'd stop bothering you and here I am still yammering at you. I'm sorry. I'm gonna go to bed and I won't bother you anymore."

And then it seemed like he was finally leaving permanently. And then he turned back again.

"Um - just - you know - _thanks,_ still, for bringing Dean back. I mean, I know things are terrible between us now, and I haven't don much at all since he's been back to let him know - to tell him - to just _be_ grateful that I have - _had_ - him back. But _thank you_. Whatever else happens, ever, that's just worth everything. And I know I can never thank you enough for that."

_Then_ he turned and clumped away and when he was gone, totally gone, around the corner of the building, and not coming back, _then_ I stepped out of black shadow that had hid me from my brother while he scraped his soul across the pavement.

I came out here to - to - well, sure not to _breathe_ because _ugh, _but I came out to think, to walk and to think and to _yeah_ do them both away from Sam. I sure didn't expect - or want - to eavesdrop on his final conversation with God and I couldn't help tossing a glance of my own up to the stars and Sam's invisible audience.

"You _plan_ this?" I had to ask.

I walked the long way, slowly, around the motel and let myself into the room. Sam's eyes got wide like they seemed to do a lot these days when he looked at me for that brief second before he looked away.

How can the guy who is so happy to have me back be so unhappy to have me around?

I love my brother, I do. I know he loves me. I know he's dying inside and I know one right word from me would make everything OK for him again.

I just can't think of that word right now.

So we each got ready for bed in absolute silence, staying as far away from each other as possible, only we nearly collided when I came out of the bathroom and he was at the foot of his bed and he dropped his backpack and I automatically picked it up for him and he said thanks and I didn't say anything but as I walked past him I slapped my hand backward against his arm.

When I snuck a look back at him, he was looking at me and his eyes weren't wide.

The End


End file.
